Sunday, July 22, 2012

Since coming onboard as new
Administrator of The Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP), Joe Jordan
has seemingly looked to policy, regulations, and guidance on tactical execution
to help solve the procurement woes that are being faced by the federal
government.

However, it has been some time since
OFPP focused on what really is the problem, the acquisition workforce.

Granted Mr. Jordan discussed workforce
in an interview with Federal Computer Week, and I
hope he does indeed focus on it.

However, without a highly trained and
functioning acquisition workforce, no initiative or improvements in the abysmal
track record of government spending is possible.

Most new “initiatives” are treated
with either derision, open hostility, or simply ignored due to lack of
attention or even awareness. I recently asked a group of contract specialists
about their use of open communication techniques, in accordance with OFPP’s
“MythBusters” campaign, and you would have thought I was speaking another language
by the blank stares I got.

One of the most respected (definitely by me) thought leaders in
this profession, Vern Edwards, said it best on a recent
post on this very issue:

…In a
complex system like acquisition, any attempt to fix deep seated system faults
through policy will fail. The only way to get at the deep seated problems in
acquisition is through workforce improvement, and I don’t mean numbers. We need
well-educated, superbly trained people for the big stuff, and we do not have
enough of them. Mismanagement and poor leadership will prompt many of the best
of the new recruits to leave. The problems are beyond the reach of management
in the organizational structure we have now for the simple reason that no one
is in charge. Only someone with the power and the ruthlessness of a Stalin
could fix the system. A few purges might be just the thing…

It is the cold, hard truth. We need to focus on people, and not
the numbers as I have previously discussed (here, here and here).

Focusing on tactical issues can certainly help, especially
focusing on performance based contracting, better requirements development, and
better communications and collaboration with industry. Nonetheless, the state
of the acquisition workforce gets worse every day, and the hole keeps getting
deeper.

You won’t hear that in any Presidential debate or attack ad. It
is easier to focus on the symptoms rather than the disease.

Sunday, July 15, 2012

The “final” report on Iraq
reconstruction was released recently, and I have seen little media
attention to the astonishing level of waste, incompetence, and outright theft
that the report highlights.

How much money is unaccounted
for? According to the report, nobody knows. After years of trying to account
for the billions we poured into the rabbit hole of Iraq, the government can
only say that billions were wasted, but not how much.

Some on the highlights
from the report:

…"billions of American taxpayer dollars at risk
of waste and misappropriation"...

..."The precise amount lost to fraud and waste can
never be known," the report said….

The auditors found huge
problems accounting for the larger sums and complex projects, but it was also
the smaller
sums that also added up to hundreds of millions of waste and fraud:

…"Given the vicissitudes of the reconstruction
effort — which was dogged from the start by persistent violence, shifting
goals, constantly changing contracting practices and undermined by a lack of
unity of effort — a complete accounting of all reconstruction expenditures is
impossible to achieve," the report concluded…

Although the Office of the Inspector
General (OIG) has spent more than $200 million tracking the reconstruction
effort, and producing numerous reports, some accountability has been realized.
The OIG investigations resulted in 87 indictments, 71 convictions and
$176 million in fines and other penalties.

Among those held
accountable are civilians, military personnel, and contractors accused of
kickbacks, bribery, bid rigging, fraud, embezzlement and outright theft of
government property and funds.

Nonetheless, these actions
are just a drop in the bucket trying to account for the outright criminal
behavior and complete lack of governance and oversight of taxpayer funds.

One of the major overlying
issues was the lack of trained, competent contracting personnel to oversee the
mission. In some cases, invoices were reviewed months after they had been paid
due to the lack of contracting officers.

The OIG highlighted a case
in which the State Department had only one contracting officer in Iraq to
validate more than $2.5 billion in spending. No contracting office representative, no help. Further, lack of
any invoice review whatsoever was the modus operandi. It is easier to not ask
questions, and sign the checks, as opposed to the improper micro-management
of contracts on the other spectrum.

Further, the IG goes on to
say:

…"As a result, invoices were not properly
reviewed, and the $2.5 billion in U.S. funds were vulnerable to fraud and
waste,"

"We found this lack of control to be especially
disturbing since earlier reviews of the DynCorp contract had found similar
weaknesses."

The report did highlight
that some funds were recovered ($60 million), but how much was wasted? Again, nobody
knows.

It is easy to sit behind a
keyboard and Monday-morning quarterback these failures, given the level of
violence and danger, shifting sands of priorities and goals, and difficulties
in securing the country. However, these failures did not occur overnight.

Endemic waste, fraud, and
corruption were rampant, and the lack of trained acquisition personnel was
known, or should have been known. Where are the government leaders who allowed
this to happen?

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About Me

Mr. Gracia is President and CEO of Seville Government Consulting. He is an experienced consultant in government contracting and procurement processes, focusing on small business and government clients. He has 20 years of professional experience providing consulting support for the acquisition, training, and management of services and technology in the government and commercial sector including numerous DoD and Federal civilian agencies. He is a Navy veteran, actively supporting military organizations such as the USO, Soldier's Angels, and serving as CFO for Cigars for Warriors.